I have seen many people who list their hobbies and interests on their resume. I think the purpose of this is make your resume more personal and colorful. Does anyone else include it on their resume? What are your thoughts on it?

I don't list my hobbies on my resume. That's because I have so many other important characteristics about myself that is defined in my resume. Sure, I'd love to tell them I enjoy fishing, playing golf, or working on my motorcycle, but it doesn't seem to look professional when your trying to get a job as an accountant or engineer. Wouldn't you agree?

I have always said not to list hobbies. Also not to list family members (men more than women tend to say how many children and their ages!).

With hobbies the can look contrived as mpcoach says - but even worse can put up barriers that you want to avoid and lead the interviewer to make stereotype judgements (v bad) or just decide they don't like you (also to be avoided). This would be an issue with hobbies to do with sport, religion, politics, and so on. Also things like reading (solitary), discos (party animal) and so forth. So really best to keep them off the CV/resume.

Interestingly in looking around at CV writing sites and forums as part of HireScores.com I have seen more people recommending hobbies on CVs as part of your CV than I would have expected. The argument runs that it helps the interviewer get a full picture of you.

I, however, continue to say leave them off. Once you have sanitised your list for political correctness and the removal of bias it will at best look artificially positive and at worst totally contrived. You would be left with some sort of charitable activities (but no actual charity mentioned to avoid bias) and team sports (played for fun not competition).

While I understand how some people would use it to make their resume more personable, that's really not what a resume is for.....it's to list the facts. They can get to know your personality in an interview.

That being said, if a serious hobby is related to the job, then go ahead. For example, if you are the president of a photography committee, and you're applying for a photographer job at the local newspaper, it would be nice to include that detail.

I don't think I'd include a sub-heading 'Hobbies' though I have had a 'Personal Interests' paragraph. I know they're almost the same but I think the latter sounds more professional. I still do have it but it's on a third page so when sending out my CV in the past I decided whether or not to send that page out. I think it's probably a good thing as, as somebody alluded to, a company is hiring a person not a job robot.

I'm a member of a local Church and in the past have done certain amounts of voluntary work there. Whilst I in no way do that to look good when applying for jobs it can't hurt I would hope. Unless the employer is an atheist perhaps.

I've also moderated several egroups and used to co-run a website for a band so these things look good as I guess they show a certain amount of administrative experience. If that's what the job requires of course.

Your hobbies can tell what your personality is and that it's the reason why HR departments ask that question. First of all, interviewers are looking forward to knowing you and how would you interact with them. The skills and abilities are not the only important thing but the character of the applicant is another factor. You can exclude those in your resume but be sure to introduce yourself to the interviewer for them to know you more and completely what you are.